


A Special Relationship

by arysteia



Series: Supervillains United [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two very charming men, each of whom have been <i>done wrong</i>, meet up and hit it off like a house on fire.  Perhaps literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Special Relationship

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for scribblinlenore’s Mismatched OTP challenge over at black_dress_lex. Part of me is curled up in a corner channelling Ten, “I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry,” and the other part is striding out to face the firing squad with the Foreign Legion, belting out Piaf all the way, “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
> 
> Migraine warning: Do _not_ attempt to figure out the internal chronology of this story. It is set now, and after now, and after s3 of _Doctor Who_ , and considerably after s7 of _Smallville_. I fly the Tardis _masterfully_. Also, don’t ask how the Master was resurrected, or how Lex escaped an icy grave beneath the Fortress of Solitude. I can’t do all the work!

Lex Luthor shrugged out of his coat and scarf and allowed an impeccably tailored and groomed servitor to take them away, sinking gratefully into a luxuriously upholstered armchair, shucking his driving gloves and warming his frozen hands by the fire. A glass of Macallan appeared as if by magic at his elbow, its bearer again disappearing virtually unseen. If there was one thing money could always buy in the high streets of London, that it could not in Kansas or Washington, it was peace, quiet, and absolute anonymity. 

The past week had not been kind, but with his meetings in the City finally over, mergers and acquisitions merged and acquired, he’d been looking forward to some long overdue rest. Naturally the weather gods saw fit to rain on his parade, almost literally, heavy fog grounding all flights out of Heathrow, even private ones, and requiring him to stay even after word had hit Fleet Street that Lexcorp had managed to not only weather the recession, but to snap up several Best of British companies while it was about it. Fleeing his hotel, and the circling paparazzi, he’d never been so grateful that the term ‘gentlemen’s club’ meant something entirely different in the UK to what it did back home.

He was understandably irritated, then, when the door to the private study opened and another man came in. The unwritten rules of the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, being clear, Lex studiously ignored him, staring at the patterns in the cut crystal glass in his hand. Something about the other man ineluctably drew his eye, however, and Lex found himself glancing sidelong in a way he’d not done since a youthful exile long since, and best, forgotten. 

The scarlet silk lining of the man’s black worsted coat was no particular surprise – rather it was the flash of bright purple inside his impeccably cut black suit jacket as he flamboyantly tossed the overcoat to a newly appeared waiter that Lex had barely noticed entering. It was the exact shade of Lex’s own shirt. Lex sipped from his glass, suppressing a smirk. The man turned towards him, arching one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Lex smiled more openly.

“Scotch?” he asked the newcomer. 

The man smiled gently, just the faintest curve of his lips. 

“What else?” he murmured, quiet enough that Lex had to lean forward to hear him. It was a trick he'd used himself, many a time, and his heart rate picked up just the slightest in anticipation. Another night in London might not be such a hardship after all. 

The man pulled off a pair of fitted black leather gloves and tossed them carelessly onto the table, revealing a large green signet ring with a pattern on it uncomfortably reminiscent of the havoc a certain farmboy had often wreaked on the unsuspecting corn-fields of Kansas, and which Lex had paid several small fortunes to have passed off in the media as standard crop circles. His shudder must have been more visible than intended, because the man tilted his chin at Lex’s own raised hand. 

Lex smiled more broadly. Touché. Kryptonite might be functional, oh so functional, but it could not by any stretch of the imagination be called subtle. He extended his other hand.

“Lex Luthor.”

The man took it, palm cool and dry. “Harold Saxon.”

Lex grinned. “Parents had a fetish for history?”

“Something like that. And yourself? The Great Alexander?”

The dance went on.

A second glass and a decanter on a silver tray materialised, seemingly from nowhere. Saxon poured himself a couple of inches, and swallowed most of it in one go.

“Far be it from me to sound gauche,” he asked, “but weren't you the President of America?”

“Of the _United States_ of America, yes,” Lex responded tersely. There was only so much aggravation a lithe body would excuse.

“Still peeved about it, are you?” Saxon carried on, accent shifting almost seamlessly from the cultured RP of his initial greeting to something altogether less soothing. 

Hang on... _Saxon_... Lex looked more closely at the man's face, and where he'd previously only had a vague impression of youthful good looks, was astonished to actually recognise him. 

“Weren’t you _Prime Minister_?” he asked in bemusement.

The man's lips pursed in a moue of distaste. “Briefly.”

“Didn’t you _assassinate the President_?” 

Saxon shrugged, though ‘shrugged’ seemed an unforgivably plebeian word for so elegant a gesture. 

“President-Elect. There’s only one president at a time, as the more virtuous in recent memory like to remind us.”

“President-Elect then.” Lex felt mildly confused, and he didn’t like it. It was almost as though he didn’t _want_ to remember, and with a lifetime of awkward amnesias, self-induced and otherwise, behind him, that was not an attractive thought. The circumstances that made one’s own third-party bid for the White House possible ought _surely_ to be more memorable. Worse, he apparently wasn’t the only one. “We tend to bear a grudge,” he insisted. “You don’t think it's odd that you’re drinking six hundred dollar a bottle whiskey in one of the oldest and most prestigious private members’ clubs in England rather than hiding in a cave in a third world country?”

“The world is very strange,” Saxon agreed. “But I had a craving for orange fool.” 

Lex _felt himself_ boggle.

“Seriously,” Saxon insisted, in that odd, lilting singsong of his. “It’s _fantastic_. Best in the world. Several worlds. They've been serving it since this place opened.” He grinned, and there was an odd gleam in his eye. “1764.”

Lex laughed despite himself.

“So tell me,” Saxon asked, leaning into Lex’s personal space, breath gusting in soft puffs against his jaw, “are you feeling a particular patriotic investment in my capture? Because that would put a crimp in my plans for the evening.”

Lex embraced his latest psychotic break with Luthor aplomb. “James,” he murmured, not shifting in his seat.

The maitre d’ appeared as though he’d never been elsewhere. “Sir?”

“I’d like to try the orange fool.”

Saxon smiled and sat back. “Make it two. And bring another bottle. The fifty-four this time. The eighty-two’s great to start with, but… No, wait. Is there any of the twenty-six left?”

“Sir.”

Lex grinned. He wasn’t a cheap date (though those four dollar waffle breakfasts that somehow defied head injury might beg to differ), but he’d never played hard enough to get to justify $54,000 aperitifs.

“I’m celebrating a job well done,” Saxon explained. “It’s not every day you can collapse an economy and usher in a worldwide depression.”

Lex laughed at the tasteless joke. His days of caring about home foreclosures and the plight of small businesses (organic farms, coffee houses) were long behind him. 

“Rogue trader, huh?”

“Here come the drums,” Saxon murmured.

In fact, here came the fool. And it was, as promised, exquisite. As was the scotch. Two bottles on a stomach cushioned only by dessert might have been a mistake, Lex reflected, as he found himself giggling in a less than masculine fashion.

“You know what ended the last one?” he asked, harking back to their earlier conversation.

“Indeed,” Saxon sighed. “Good times.” He lunged suddenly towards Lex, stealth belying satiety. “ _Great_ times,” he growled.

His lips were oddly cool, bordering on cold, but the pressure against Lex’s was just right. He opened his mouth and tilted his head as Saxon’s tongue dragged wetly along his bottom lip, then licked inside, tangling with his own. He tasted of honey and salt, rather than the expected citrus and single malt. Lex’s fingers curved at the base of his neck. For a man who was currently biting along Lex’s jaw, hands clenching just this side of painful on his ribs, Saxon’s pulse was hardly racing. Hardly moving at all. Lex shifted his fingers and pressed harder. It wasn’t hard to find. Strong and steady, and slow. On both sides. Two pulses out of pace with each other, one at its peak as the other was at its trough. _God!_

Lex pulled away, pushing hard enough on Saxon’s sternum to break his hold. “Where are you from?” he asked, shocked and angry.

“Heckmondwycke,” Saxon answered, swiping a wrist against his swollen mouth. “Largest majority in the House of Commons, you know.”

Lex moved to get a knee between them on the couch, hand subtly dropping to the empty decanter. “Where are you _really_ from?”

Saxon smiled wolfishly. “You _are_ a clever boy. And put that down.”

Lex let the decanter drop from suddenly nerveless fingers.

“How could you tell?” Saxon asked, curious rather than remotely worried.

“I’ve had some experience,” Lex countered bitterly.

“Not good?”

“Best of my life,” Lex blurted, shame burning hot and heavy up his neck to flush his cheeks. It was like he had no control _at all_.

“Oh, it’s like _that_ ,” Saxon laughed, clapping his hands in pantomime glee. “How absolutely marvellous.”

Every muscle in Lex’s body twitched with the desire to throw something at the man’s head.

“He can’t have been that super,” Saxon continued blithely, “or you wouldn’t have broken up with him.”

Lex flinched.

“ _He_ broke up with _you_?” 

Lex summoned all his energy to kick ineffectually at Saxon’s shin. “He tried to have me _impeached_ ,” he rasped from his prison in the corner of the couch. “Self righteous fucking jackass!” The expletive echoed uncomfortably in the rarefied atmosphere, but it was still an excruciatingly sore spot. Blowing up million dollar labs was one thing, and ultimately deductible as a business loss when he did his taxes, but the exposé and subsequent enquiry had been a whole new nadir.

Saxon frowned. “I did wonder. Given I don't recall _your_ killing any visiting foreign dignitaries. And I knew it wasn’t _change_ , even if your successor did run a campaign startlingly similar to my own. I dislike this friend of yours on principle, for helping to inflict _hope_ on the world.”

“He’s an interfering, do-gooding fool of an alien moron who always thinks he knows best, and interferes in everything I ever do without once stopping to find out my motives or consider the consequences,” Lex shouted, tongue loosened by fine whiskey, a better than average despite the unpleasant surprise snog, a for once sympathetic audience, or a combination of all three. 

Saxon burst out laughing and Lex rethought the sympathetic part.

His tormentor waved a hand airily. “Sorry, sorry. You just reminded me of someone. Well, not you. Your description. I didn't think this planet was big enough for two of them.” 

Lex glared at him, unconvinced.

“And on that note,” Saxon continued, unabashed, “we should have dinner. And a lot more booze.”

James reappeared, unsummoned, and recommended the chateaubriand and a ninety-four Margaux.

“It’s the service that really makes this place,” Saxon continued, as though the evening had not taken a turn for the surreal, even for someone who’d grown up in Smallville. “It’s named for the first head waiter, you know. Not many places you can say that about. Brilliant chap.”

Released from his unexplained paralysis, Lex wasn’t even tempted to use his razor sharp steak knife for anything but its intended purpose. He’d _always_ been able to roll with the unexpected. And the food was outstanding. 

“Did yours break up with you?” he asked innocently, as Saxon took a large mouthful of wine.

His dark eyes flared dangerously, but he managed to swallow without disaster to his spotless white shirt. 

“Yes,” he said, stabbing a potato olive viciously. “But I got the last laugh.”

“How?” Lex asked, sincerely interested. Pointers never went astray.

“Homicidal wife. He thinks I’m dead.”

Lex shuddered. “Technically he saved me from my first wife. Pined while I was marooned by the second. Third was _not_ the charm.”

“Serves you right for marrying so often. Denial?”

Lex refilled their glasses and avoided eye contact. The ring on his finger flashed in the light.

“Is that _kryptonite_?” Saxon demanded, cutting himself off. “I recognised it before but it didn’t click.”

Lex looked up as Saxon burst out laughing again, body shaking with it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

Lex sighed, and waited for an explanation.

“For _inflicting_ him on you.”

Oh. My. God. “ _You_ blew up Krypton?” he demanded.

“Technically,” Saxon answered, still laughing quietly. “Not on purpose. It just happened to be _in_ the third of the universe I destroyed by screwing up some block transfer computations.”

Lex felt his jaw drop.

“I said I was sorry. And it was no loss anyway. Krypton was the only planet in the universe that made _Gallifrey_ look interesting.”

Saxon stopped smiling. Wherever Gallifrey was, it was evidently an unpleasant memory. “Does he ever stop moaning about it?” he asked harshly. “Mine doesn’t. Last of His Kind. Makes me sick. He hated Gallifrey as much as I did, and now he cries every time he thinks of it.” 

“Um...” Lex scrambled to change what was clearly a perilous subject. “He’s not technically the last. Supervillains” – he cringed at the term – “tend to appear from strange and convenient limbos with irritating regularity.”

“Excellent,” Saxon said, smile returning. “Excellent. Just as it should be. Have you finished?”

“Yes?” Lex answered uncertainly, looking down at his plate where the pink of the rare beef was spreading into the cream of the sauce like modern art or a pagan sacrifice.

“Good, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“For a spin,” Saxon answered cheerfully. “I’m in the mood all of a sudden.”

For what, Lex wanted to ask but didn’t, as James and an underling helped bundle them back into their coats.

“I can call the limo back,” Lex offered as they emerged onto the street.

“We’ll take mine,” Saxon replied, holding out his hand.

Lex looked at it dubiously. This was London, to be sure, but it was a fairly conservative part of London.

“It’ll be the ride of your life, I promise.”

Lex took the proffered hand, leather sliding smoothly against his own gloved palm, and allowed Saxon to pull him round the corner into a dimly lit back street.

“ _Christ_ ,” he breathed, damn near salivating at what had to be a prototype. “Is that the 2010 Vantage?”

“2012,” Saxon countered smugly. He smiled as Lex ran a hand across the gleaming hood, then crossed to the passenger side, opened the door, and handed Lex in.

Lex was about to complain at the chivalry, but realised in time that there were bigger issues at hand. He was standing in a massive chrome and glass vestibule, low couches decked out in black leather, and something weird and unidentified rising and falling in the centre of a complex control panel. He swallowed. “It’s... er...” 

“Bigger on the inside?” Saxon sighed.

“I was _going_ to say,” Lex countered, “dimensionally transcendental.” 

Saxon’s face lit up. “We haven’t even left, and you’re already the best companion ever. Come on, I’ll find you a room.”

A room? God, was there more? There was certainly a doorway and what appeared to be a staircase. “Harry,” Lex started, carefully. It felt weird, but he couldn’t call him Saxon to his face, and there was no way he was saying Harold in the throes of... well... anything.

“That’s not actually my name,” Saxon smirked.

“Who are you then?”

Saxon held up both hands in a whimsical gesture. “I. Am. The Master.”

Lex smiled right back. “There’s _really_ no way I’m calling you _that_.”

Saxon – Harry – the Master – hit a few buttons, seemingly at random. “We’ll see,” he said good naturedly. “Anywhere in particular you’d like to go? Or anywhen?”

Anywhen... Half a dozen jokes and comments fell suddenly into place. “ _Surprise me_.”

The Master – Saxon – Harry – damn it! – nodded approvingly.

The rotor wheezed as it rose and fell. “What about my company?” it occurred to Lex belatedly to ask.

“It’ll still be there when you get back. Unlike _some_ I can actually steer.” Temptation held out its hand once more.

Lex took it without hesitation. “I mean it,” he insisted, as he was dragged down the hallway towards what was obviously the master – _ha!_ – bedroom. “I’m not calling you Master.”

The Master grinned and pushed him onto the bed. “Did I mention I have a respiratory bypass?”

**Author's Note:**

> **Bonus DVD Extra:**
> 
> Honorary membership in the second oldest and most prestigious gentlemen's club in England, nay the world, to those who recognised Boodle's. Ian Fleming was a member, and based Blades' (James Bond's club) on it. Boodle himself really was the head waiter. They really do serve orange fool, and while I'm not a member I do have the recipe book!
> 
>  _Boodle’s Orange Fool_  
>  (serves 4)
> 
> a dozen savoiardi biscuits, halved (or ladyfingers, sponge fingers, or at a pinch trifle sponge cut into 1/2 inch slices)  
> zest and juice of 2 oranges  
> zest and juice of 1 lemon  
> 1 oz sugar  
> 1/2 pint double (whipping) cream  
> orange slices or segments, to decorate
> 
> Line the bottom and sides of individual small bowls with savoiardi biscuits. 
> 
> Mix the orange and lemon zests and juices with the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
> 
> In another bowl, whip the cream until it just starts to thicken, then slowly add the sweetened fruit juice, still whipping. Keep whipping until the cream is light and thickened and all the juice has been absorbed. 
> 
> Pour the mixture over the biscuits and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, longer if possible, so that the juice can soak into the sponge and the cream can thicken. Serve decorated with segments or slices of fresh orange.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Oh, and a twenty-six Macallan really did go for $54,000 at auction. The $600 eighty-two is clearly a steal!
> 
> And of course, "a special relationship" is the term given to Anglo-American relations since WWII.


End file.
